Best Practices for Social Media Promotion for Bloggers

Social media is a powerful traffic-driving tool for bloggers. Most of the promotions you run on social media don’t cost a dime, yet they can bring thousands of new eyes on your content – and hundreds of thousands if you have something go viral on Pinterest or Facebook!

There are some proper steps bloggers should take to ensure the time spent on social media promotion is worthwhile. Read on for the best practices for social media!

Create specific images for each social media network.

Not all social networks are created equal when it comes to the size of image they share. Pinterest, for example, needs a long, vertical image (1000 x 1500 pixels is a good starting point). Facebook and Twitter, on the other hand, need wider rectangular images (940 x 788 pixels).

Ensure each blog post you create has at least two images, which will satisfy all of the major social networks you plan to share on.

Share each blog post as much as you can on the day of publishing.

Once you hit publish on your newest article, it’s time to get to sharing. Don’t let it sit on your blog for a week before you promote…and worse yet, avoid let it get buried below newer posts without doing any promotion.

Each blog post should be shared once on Pinterest, Facebook, and Google+ the day it goes live. For Twitter, publish two tweets on the first day – one when it goes live, and a second status 4-5 hours later.

Use keywords and hashtags as appropriate.

In order for your social media updates to receive maximum exposure, there are tricks you can do to help potential readers find your content. On Pinterest, for example, be sure you are loading your pin description with the right keywords for the blog post you are promoting. Pinterest is more of a search engine than a social media network, with its users utilizing the space bar to find the perfect dessert, craft, or tutorial they are searching for.

If you have used proper keywords in your description, it’s likely they will see yours when searching on a given topic.

Twitter benefits from the use of hashtags. You can visit your Twitter account to see what hashtags are trending at any given time. If you have a post that fits within a popular hashtag, be sure to share it!

Pinterest is beginning to allow hashtags again, so don’t forget to include a couple in your pin descriptions too.

Schedule your social media updates to supercharge your promotions.

No blogger can live on social media 24/7…however, you are likely missing the prime times to get new readers when you are away from the computer. The solution? Scheduling social media updates to go out through the day.

This is a great form of blog promotion that works even when you aren’t. Facebook lets you schedule your page updates in advance, so you can spend 20 minutes in the morning scheduling out 4 updates for the day.

There are a host of social media schedulers that work for Twitter. Hootsuite and Buffer are two fine examples. You simply upload your tweets and set the days and times you want them to be publishing on your accounts.

For Pinterest, Tailwind and BoardBooster are available to schedule your pinning. No longer do you have to get sucked into the abyss that is Pinterest…you can spend one hour a WEEK, yes, a week, scheduling your pin activity with these tools.

Don’t forget the Facebook groups.

Many bloggers have created Facebook groups to help specifically with social media promotions. In these groups, there are “share threads” for every day of the week. Simply drop your link to a blog post you want commented on or shared.

There are also threads for each social media network – for example, retweet threads for tweets you want to boost exposure on. Just make sure you return the favor in these threads, or you will be booted from the group!

Now that you have a better idea of the best practices for social media promotion, it’s time to set up and follow a checklist. Having a list of “to-do’s” when it comes to social media ensures you are using your networks to their fullest potential.

Thank you for this! I have been so out of the blogging loop for about seven months now. I’m exploring the opportunity to dive back in and see what I can make it this time. Social media has always been a weak area for me. I’m hoping I can master some of it soon.

Thanks for sharing those pointer. Nowadays people are so busy it makes it hard to find ways to get in front of an audience. I will implement those tips and hopefully get more reach. Thank you for sharing!

These are all great tips. Creating an article that sparks the interest of the reader is a lot of effort, so why just let it sit when we can amplify it through social media! I have learned a thing or two in this post. Thank you!